So I just bought this car. It's got 83k on it, no leaks or anything noticeable.
When I first test drove it I didn't notice anything at all.
So, a few things it does that are all related.
1.) When you start it if you put it in gear before it gets to its final idle RMP it will just die.
2.) When you do wait for it to get a good idle first and then put it in gear it drops down pretty significantly and then revs back up
3.) If you feather the throttle to go it goes fine, but if you kind of give it a bit more than normal throttle it lags so bad that it will die if you don't let up on the gas, once you let up it will continue to try and get it's bearings and then after about 1.5 seconds it will slowly go. Or sometimes it just dies.
4.) If it's in park and you recreate the same thing with the throttle it will be at an idle at about 1100 RPMs and then it will drop down to about 600 like its going to die, but it catches itself and then bounces back and forth between 600 and 1500 RPM until it corrects. Again, sometimes it just dies.
5.) And lastly, two out of about 12 times I've been messing with it at an idle it just starts accelerating RPM's, the first time it climbed to about 2500 before I just shut it off, the second time it climbed to about 1600 and just stayed there and I shut it off and restarted and it came right back to normal idle.
No codes are present.
I tried the obvious and changed the plugs and wires.
The plugs looked like it had a fine layer of oil on it, I'm not sure what that indicates.
Also odd is that the manual says that the firing order is 1342, but I see two different firing orders online, the other being 4123. It only starts with 4123, would not start with 1342
I'm thinking TPS, but i thought I'd check here first as you guys have really helped me in the past with a couple other saturn's I've had.
I read a bunch of other threads abut the subject and someone had suggested getting some Techron complete fuel system cleaner. So I got that, but it says to use it on a near empty tank with at least 12 gallons of new fuel. I'm at just under 1/2 tank. I don't know how long the car had been sitting, so I guess it could have old fuel.
Any other ideas? I'm surprised it can miss this bad and not throw a code.

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